Are we nearly there yet?

Go on, drop the magazine if you have never heard those words or thought them yourself!

On some car journeys, when I heard those words coming from the back seats, it usually prompted swift action to try and quieten things down before things got too distracting. I guess that I didn't like being reminded, again and again, that we're not there already either. So often we push on to the destination, and once we've set out we simply want to get there as soon as possible.

Maybe it’s a more common experience than we care to admit. So often we focus so intensely on the getting there bit that we fail to make the most of the journey itself.

In the animated film Cars the lead character is a racing car called Lightning McQueen. Lightning's quick, of course, and is totally focused on winning and being 'better' than everyone else. Something happens on the way to a race, and he ends up off the main highway in a town that time forgot called Radiator Springs. It takes time, but in that place Lightning eventually discovers more about himself and that there is more to life than selfish ambition.

Random events in life can give us the nudge to get out of 'full steam ahead' and take time to notice what we can learn on the way. Sometimes we're so full of hundred-mile-an-hour busyness that we miss what is right in front of us. What was it that people used to say - 'more haste less speed'?

Have you ever walked a child to school? Can take forever can’t it? Especially if they get caught up with a snail, or a leaf, or a puddle – caught up, full of wonder. Perhaps the moment has come for you to plan a slow walk and remember what that is like, to be caught up in wonder. Take time to notice and appreciate what is there before you - and perhaps take a friend with you to explore together. When you decide that it's going to take the time that it takes and you are prepared to make that the purpose of the trip… it changes everything.

Of course it might be important to have aims and goals in daily life. You might like to think about whether it is just as important to have an idea not just about what we are aiming for but also how we are going to get things done and how we are going to be with the people we encounter along the way.

You might have heard of the parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep and the lost son? The message is that God wants you to be found rather than lost, that God longs for you to be found if you are lost, and that ultimately God travels with each one of us all the way to where we are going.

Are we nearly there yet?

Maybe, but what matters is that God is with us as we journey onwards. It's not easy to find time, so I am going to make time to notice. I think we might be able to do that better together.

How about you?

Light and life


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